Many Rivers to Cross
by Courtney Belle
Summary: ON INDEFINITE HIATUS. AU. When tragedy strikes Tree Hill, Brooke and Lucas return. Will they persevere together as they always have? Or will the dark shadows of their past swallow them and destroy the fairytale life they worked so hard to create?
1. A Door On Its Hinges

**Author's Note:** My first One Tree Hill story. I'm half scared, half excited. Also, I would LOVE a beta-reader, so...if you have experience, please. Please!

**Disclaimer: **All characters were created by Mark Schwahn. They are his creative property; I'm just messing around with their lives.

H. Rider Haggard once wrote:  
_"It is curious to look back and realize  
upon__ what trivial and apparently coincidental circumstances great events frequently turn  
as__ easily and naturally as a door on its hinges."_

**Chapter One  
_A Door On Its Hinges_**

"Broody, have you seen my gold Manolo Blahniks?"

Brooke Davis, who was dressed to kill in a figure hugging strapless red dress, felt like she had gone to hell and back searching for her newest pair of incredibly expensive designer shoes. In reality, she had only gone to the living room and back, but as her boyfriend Lucas Scott could tell from the severe lack of fancy gold heels on her feet, not to mention the equally severe look of frustration on her prettily made up face, hell would be the thing to pay if she did not find said heels and find them fast.

"Have you checked the hall closet?" He ventured, quickly setting down his own shoes, lest the sight of them on his feet send Brooke into a jealous shoe tizzy. "Because you moved some things in there when --"

"Don't you lecture me about my closet, Lucas Scott!" she interrupted, sitting up on her knees, which were rose red from all the shuffling around she had been doing on them, and putting her manicured hands on her shapely hips. As she launched into a speech about how she never complained to him about his tacky basketball memorabilia on display in the living room, he found himself distracted by the way her lipstick-covered lips curved to form words.

"And don't even get me started on that ugly cookie jar of yours," she continued, oblivious to the route her boyfriend's eyes were traveling down. "I mean, sure it's cute that Lily made it for us and everything, but I think the clay is all chippy! People just don't find orange, icky clay-tasting chocolate chips in their cookies. They just don't!"

Lucas snapped out of his Brooke appreciation for two seconds to offer her a small, sincere grin. "It's shaped like a basketball," he told her, as if that made up for all the bits of clay they had digested since his little sister, Lily Roe Scott, had give them the homemade cookie jar for Christmas. Then he remembered what had started her on this quite amusing tirade about all of his bad decorating taste. "And I wasn't going to lecture you about your closet. I just mentioned it because you might have put those Manoli Blah...things in there because they wouldn't fit in THIS closet."

"Manolo Blahniks," Brooke corrected almost immediately. "Gold, brand new. Absolutely adorable." She paused, then added, "Also, incredibly expensive."

She looked at him with her eyebrows raised just slightly, as if she expected him to say something to that. When he didn't, she threw her hands in the air as she got to her feet. "SO I wouldn't put them in the hall closet! That's where I moved all of the _old_-ish stuff that there was a less likely chance of me wearing, but that I wasn't ready to get rid of yet."

Again, Lucas's eyes traveled down to her legs. For some reason, her carpet-marked knees seemed really, really alluring.

"What are you looking at?" she inquired after a few minutes of silence, noticing that his eyes weren't exactly on her face.

Grinning, he looked up into her eyes. "Your knees."

Brooke could not hold back the lighthearted laugh that leapt to her throat. Here she was, in the middle of what she classified as a total breakdown because it was fashion related, and he was looking at her _knees_. If it was possible, she felt her love for him swell, and she crossed the room in five quick steps so she could settle herself on his lap. Lucas received her almost automatically and wrapped his arms around her slim waist.

"Have I mentioned how much I love this dress?" he asked, eyeing her up and down quickly.

"You might have said something once or twice," answered Brooke as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

Their eyes met, and they both smiled as butterflies swarmed in Brooke's stomach. After all their years together, he still had the ability to make her feel all ecstatic and teenage girly with just a glance; but Brooke knew somewhere in the back of her mind that locking eyes with him had nothing to do with the butterflies. They had been born three days ago and had not gone away, not since she had begun to suspect... No. Not since she had _found out_. The big secret. The announcement. Tonight was the night. She felt it deep in her heart, in her belly, in her throat. Tonight was the night that their lives would change forever...

As she opened her mouth to tell him just how much she loved him, Lucas silenced her with a kiss. What started out as an innocent little peck quickly turned into something more passionate as the two fell back onto the bed and let their hands roam over familiar territory. Without a second's hesitation, Brooke parted her lips and allowed Lucas's tongue to dart between them and lovingly tickle the roof of her mouth. Withholding a smirk, she tiptoed her fingers underneath his dress shirt and let them trace the well-defined lines of his delicious abdomen. Just slightest feel of his warm skin against her fingertips had her craving more; they had made love not one hour ago, yet already she found herself wishing they had just stayed together in bed, tangled up in each other's arms. As if reading her mind, Lucas pulled away to kiss down her neck, and Brooke turned her head to allow him better access…and saw something in the back of the closet that she had overlooked before.

"My shoes!"

Lucas let his face hit the bed as Brooke rolled away from him and dashed happily to the closet to retrieve her gold Manolo Blahniks from their hiding place in, of all things, a shoe box. When she turned back around, shoes in hand and a genuine smile on her face that only high quality footwear could generate, she had to laugh at the sight of Lucas and his pathetic puppy dog face.

"Your shoes are really more important to you than I am?"

His ridiculous question was met with an eye roll. "Stop it. And hurry up and get ready; I want to make our reservations! They were really --"

"Hard to get." Lucas rolled over on his back and stared up at the ceiling. "I know, I know. Speaking of hard..."

Brooke chose to ignore him as she slipped her freshly pedicured toes into the brand new, never-been-worn-before, open-toe heels. "All ready!"

Excited to get to SouthPark and to the restaurant before the traffic got too bad, Brooke sauntered out of the room just in time to miss Luke murmuring something about being ready too...but not to go out. Five minutes later, he emerged from the bedroom, pulling on his suit jacket and brushing down the sleeves. "You know, we could always just skip this whole elaborate restaurant thing, and I could prove just how incredibly romantic I am by cooking for you." He grinned as Brooke moved forward to adjust his tie. "That way it won't take us so long to get from dinner to dessert."

Holding in a smile, Brooke swatted him playfully on the chest and buttoned his jacket for him. "We're going out, and that's that. I already know you're romantic. Now you have to prove you're cooperative!"

As it turned out, Lucas was incredibly cooperative. They arrived at the restaurant five minutes early for their dinner reservations, and were seated without any wait. After holding her chair for her, for which he was given a very solid kiss on the lips, Lucas sat down across from Brooke and grinned at her. The traffic on the way to the restaurant had been just bad enough to keep them stranded at a stop light for a good ten minutes, and most of the time had been well spent ruining Brooke's expertly applied makeup and messing up Lucas's lucky red tie.

"Stop grinning at me," she commanded with a mock glare after their waiter brought them their water.

Lucas reached for his glass and took a sip, the expression on his face the very definition of innocent. "Or what?"

Unfooled by his rather commendable act, Brooke reached across the table and fixed his tie for the third time that night. "Or no dessert."

"You drive a hard bargain, Pretty Girl," Lucas set down his water and pulled her hands away from his tie. Brooke felt the butterflies in her stomach welcome a new family of little baby butterflies into the world. She loved it when he called her 'Pretty Girl'. And just as if using the nickname he _knew_ she adored was not enough for him, he had to start kissing all of her knuckles _individually_. Why had they left the bed again...?

Right! Because of the announcement. The big announcement that was making her nervous beyond all reason and freaking out all the butterflies in her stomach. When would it be made? When_ should_ it be made? Would he hug her? Kiss her? Hug her THEN kiss her? Would they get all teary-eyed and stand up to make the announcement to everyone in the restaurant? Would they be so overjoyed at the idea that they skipped dinner and got right down to the dessert? What would his mother say when they called her and told her? Would all of their friends throw them a huge party? The butterflies screamed 'YES, BROOKE, YES!' at her, and she suddenly found it very hard to breathe. Just the thought of all that happiness and pure joy...it made her want to cry, because what if it _didn't_ go that way?

Before she could let her mind drift back to the daydream she had got caught in earlier that day, which involved him getting up from the table and walking right out without so much as a second glance over his shoulder, Lucas released her hands and picked up his menu.

"Hmm," His soulful blue eyes scanned the prices listed next to each item. "You're buying, right?"

Brooke laughed, and the butterflies all retreated into their little butterfly homes, for the time being. "I believe _you're_ the gentleman at this table, Mr. Scott."

"Ah, damn." Lucas snapped his fingers, as if only just remembering that fact. "Well, you'd better not order -- "

"Oh! Look at this," Brooke smiled prettily at him over the top of her menu. "My _favorite_ food in the _world_ happens to be the most expensive thing on the menu!"

"Imagine that," replied Lucas, eyeing her strangely.

Suddenly self-conscious, Brooke set down the menu hurriedly and tried to remember if she'd brought her compact. "What? Do I have something on my face?"

It took her boyfriend a few moments to respond, but he finally did. "No, but you _will_!"

Before she knew it, she _did_ have something on her face. Lucas. Giggling, Brooke gave into the deep kiss he initiated, but pulled back when she heard an old lady two tables over make a highly affronted noise over her chicken cordon bleu.

"Can't we go five minutes without you getting all mushy on me?" she asked rhetorically, reopening her menu and trying not to smile at the pleased look on Lucas's face. For a moment, she felt a small chill of fear run down her spine as she imagined what her life would be without that smile, without that face. Could she really do this? Could she really ask this of him right now, when everything was going perfect for them just as it was? More than that...did she even have the courage to ask it of him?

_Stop thinking about, stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it._

Unfortunately, mental mantras had never really held much sway over the decisions her brain made for her, and she found herself thinking almost obsessively about it all the way through their appetizers. What if he told her it wasn't possible? Or that he wouldn't do it? Did she really _expect_ him to commit to this after the four years they had just spent apart while he went to UNC and majored in Literature and she studied fashion in New York? The long distance had been hard on them, but they had survived, hadn't they? Didn't that _prove_ that they were ready for this? And how could he say no? He loved her. He told her so every day, and she knew that it was true. Every fiber of her being, every inch of her heart told her and reassured her of it every single day, with every look he gave her and every touch they shared. She, Brooke Davis, was head over heels for Lucas Scott, and had been for so long that she could not even remember what it was like to _not_ be.

He would not leave her because of this. He would grin and say 'YES!' and most likely hire one of those airplanes to write the news in the sky so that everyone in Charlotte could see. She loved him, he loved her, they were out of college, living together, having pretty much the best sex they'd ever had... and not two nights ago he'd told her that he wanted to spend forever with her. She had giggled girlishly and asked him if they were having a quote-unquote Naley Moment, and he had touched his nose to hers and told her that yes, he believed they were! That had to mean something. Nathan and Haley had just celebrated their 6th wedding anniversary earlier that year, and they were all settled down and madly in love, with their adorable thirteen-month-old son...

More than anything, Brooke wanted that with Lucas.

She was going to do it. She was going to do it... Right now, over their spaghetti and meatballs, she was going to do it.

All the butterflies in her stomach let out a raucous cheer as she leaned towards him and said, "Lucas, I --"

His cell phone rang.

The butterflies sank back down again.

Lucas held up a finger, told her to "hold that thought, pretty girl", and moved towards the restrooms to take the call.

Brooke spent an agonizing seven minutes at the table by herself, twirling the spaghetti noodles around her pristinely clean fork and contemplating the fact that her beautiful moment had just been utterly, utterly ruined. When was she going to find the courage to actually do it again? Instantly, all the fears she had managed to silence rose up again in one big gush. He would not believe her. He would laugh at her. He would walk away. They would be over. Their relationship would be ruined just because of three words. Granted, three words that added up to a pretty big deal when uttered together, but...still! Just three words! Could she really do that? Tear down their wonderful life with just three words?

She realized as she watched Lucas walk back to the table, that no, she could not.

As all the doubts and fears piled up on her, she managed to catch the solemn look on her boyfriend's face as he sat back down. The butterflies suddenly became dark, creeping moths.

"What is it?" she asked, studying his eyes for some kind of indication as to what could make him look so grave.

"It's Whitey," he told her, voice scratchy from holding back tears.

Brooke frowned and set down her fork. Whitey, or Bryan Durham as he was called by anyone uninformed, had been Lucas's basketball coach at Tree Hill High School, a guiding force in his life, a mentor, a substitute grandfather of sorts. They had kept in touch even when Lucas left Tree Hill and basketball behind, and Lucas spoke of no one like he spoke of Whitey.

The stony look on Lucas's face suddenly scared her more than it worried her. "What about him?"

His usually bright blue eyes cloudy, Lucas reached for her hand and gripped it. She squeezed back.

"He's dead."


	2. Waiting In The Anteroom

**Author's Note:** Got it up as soon as I could! I enjoyed reading all of your reviews, and thank you so much for leaving them! For all of you who read the first chapter and _didn't_ review...well, if there was anything you didn't like about it, I would love to hear exactly what (as long as you are polite about it). To everyone who ventured a guess about what Brooke's announcement/secret/question/whatever is, I have news! You're not going to find out in this chapter, either. But all will be revealed, eventually. If you like, hate, "whatever", this chapter, please leave a review, because I have my own opinion of it, and I need to know if you feel the same way! Constructive criticism is more than welcome (as are glowing praises, of course).

EDIT: Due to the recent developments on One Tree Hill, Karen's son Keith has been changed to her daughter Lily, and Nathan and Haley's son Bryan is now their second-born, James's little brother.

Agatha Christie once wrote:  
_"I live now on borrowed time,_  
_waiting in the anteroom for the summons that will inevitably come._  
_And then - I go on to the next thing, whatever it is._  
_One doesn't luckily have to bother about that."_

**  
Chapter Two  
_Waiting In The Anteroom_**

_Whitey's dead._

She had known this horrible truth for two days. She had cried over it, questioned God, contemplated the meaning of life, beaten herself up for every time she had ever kept herself from expressing her gratitude for all his kindness, and gone through her daily duties on autopilot as she thought about the cold hard fact that he was irreversibly dead. And she realized that none of her tears or reflections on existence could ever bring him back.

Denial.

It was all just a mistake. Nathan had his facts mixed up, or the body had been wrongly identified. Whitey had simply gone on a short vacation without telling anybody, but he would be back in a few weeks, and everything would go back to normal. Brooke and Lucas would return to Tree Hill for Christmas later that year, and he would be there to celebrate with them. They would exchange presents, he would try to prod Lucas and Brooke into marrying each other already before he wasn't around anymore to attend the wedding...

Anger.

How could he just go and die on them, with no warning, no proper goodbye? He was supposed to be there for her when she and Lucas _did_ get married, because they had talked about it together the year before, jokingly at the beginning, but serious at the end. Whitey would give her away, because Brooke could not even rely on her father and mother to actually show up, and he would make one of his wise speeches at their reception. His phone line would always be open whenever she and Lucas needed help, because he had all the answers they needed about life, love, happiness, sharing, kindness, spending time with each other, appreciating things, living...And if he was going to die, why couldn't he wait until they were all with him to tell him how much they cared about him and would miss him?

Bargaining.

Why couldn't God just send him back for five minutes? Just five more minutes, so that Brooke could try to sum up to him what he meant to her, because she knew she didn't tell him enough. She remembered all the hello and goodbye hugs, the sage advice he gave her and all of her friends, how he steadily guided their courses with his smart words and oftentimes not-so-gentle prodding. He cared for them, and they cared for him, and it just wasn't right that he had been taken away before they could tie everything up. Say goodbye. Hug him just once more, and really take the time to appreciate it. To appreciate the way he smelled and commit to memory. Why couldn't God just bring him back so she could say goodbye?

Depression.

Bryan "Whitey" Durham. Her mind was full of him. How ecstatic he had been when his Ravens had earned him his 500th win. How much he loved his late wife Camilla, even though she had been dead for so long that he could not remember what her smile looked like or how sweet her perfume smelled. Brooke found herself terrified of forgetting the way Whitey's rough voice grew husky when he was emotional and trying to hide it, or how he had patted her shoulder and told her that it did not matter that she and Lucas were going to be in two different states. He told her that he believed in their love and what it could do, just as much as he believed in Nathan and Haley's, in Karen and Keith's, in his and Camilla's. Whitey always knew just what to say...

Acceptance.

She had not gotten there yet. Instead, she was stuck cycling through the other four "stages of grief", as they were called, unable to see past the moment and realize that even though he was gone, everything would be okay. Life would go on. People would laugh, hearts would break, children would grow, children would bury their parents, loves would be forged and broken. Lives would end. But _life_ would not. But the knowledge that the world at large would not stop to mourn the loss of Whitey made her angrier than the fact that he had not even had the decency to wait for her to get to Tree Hill before he died.

When Brooke finally managed to tear her eyes away from the skyline, she shifted her gaze to Lucas and felt her heart break at what she saw. His brow was furrowed and heavy, which reminded her of the expression he got every time he reached the end of _The Great Gatsby_, and there were red rims around his eyes that told her he had been silently crying. Compelled to offer him some small amount of comfort, she moved her left hand to rest on top of his right knee. Just as it was second nature for her to respond to his loving kisses and caresses, Lucas reacted to her soft touch by sliding his hand down from the steering wheel and setting it over hers.

They sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the sound of the road beneath the tires.

"Welcome to Tree Hill," whispered Brooke after they passed the tacky mint green sign.

"Do you feel any different?" Lucas asked, and she wasn't sure if the question was rhetorical, or if he actually wanted an answer.

Brooke decided on the latter. "Not really. Well, a little. Nervous?"

Lucas nodded, and laced his fingers through hers. They were not far from his mother's café, where they had arranged to meet up with Karen, her daughter Lily, Nathan and Haley, _their_ sons James and Bryan, and Nathan's mother Deb. Brooke had not really made it a priority to keep in touch with anyone else from high school, so she had no idea who else would be coming back to attend Whitey's funeral, or if anyone other than Nathan and Haley had moved back after college. Mouth, Bevin, Skills, and Rachel were the only people she knew about for sure, and she did not particularly care about anyone else's post-graduation endeavors.

"Do you know who else is coming?" she whispered, keeping her eyes on the road ahead of them. Looking around at the familiar high school haunts would only make her think of Whitey again, and she wanted to give herself a little time off from the depression to recharge.

She felt Lucas's fingers curl tighter around her own, and she returned the light squeeze with one of her own, prompting him to answer.

"Skills. He...said he would be up as soon as he could. Bevin too."

Brooke nodded, her eyes catching a group of teenagers laughing together on the sidewalk. Whitey sprang to mind immediately, and she felt her sorrow grow at the thought of all the students at Tree Hill High whose lives would never be touched by him the way hers had been. Lucas continued to list all the people he thought were coming, but she found herself unable to tune back in. The light turned red at the intersection in front of them, and she turned her head slightly to observe the group of kids as they reached the corner. Three girls, arms linked in a jumble of shopping bags and purses, and two guys walking behind them with what looked like the heavy duty plunder. Despite herself, despite the fact that she usually did everything she could to forget about all the carefree moments with her friend sin high school, Brooke smiled at the sight. She had been one of those girls at one point, maybe the one on the far left with the impeccable makeup and the cell phone covered in Swarovsky crystals.

Thankfully, before she got a chance to get too sentimental, the light turned green and they were on their way again.

"Nathan said that he wasn't sure about anyone else, and I don't think they've managed to get a hold of everyone yet."

A small sigh escaped through Brooke's lips, and her boyfriend glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "It's nothing," she said immediately, spotting the look. "I was just thinking about what a sad way this is to have a high school reunion."

"Tell me about it," murmured Lucas.

Silence fell on the car again, and Brooke felt herself growing impatient to reach Karen's Café. Silence meant she had to think, that she had to reminisce and get all philosophical, and she honestly just wanted to collapse in one of Karen's comfy chairs and sip on a piping hot cup of the best coffee in the state. She wanted to hold Haley and Nathan's thirteen-month-son in her arms and try to cajole him into calling her Auntie Brooke, despite Haley's insistence that her little boy would not be calling anyone anything but 'gooboo!' anytime soon. She wanted to chat about how everyone's lives were, she wanted to fend off the constant hints that she and Lucas needed to get married and soon. All of this weight she felt now that she was back in the town where she had so many memories with Whitey, Brooke just wanted it to go away. She wanted to be 17 again, when she thought that her biggest problem was Rachel Gatina trying to steal the cheerleading squad. She would give anything to go back and do everything again, just a little differently.

Not that she would ever tell Lucas that. He would think that she wanted to go back and change things and keep them from being together, or that she regretted even getting back together with him in the first place, and she _never_ wanted him to think that. Now that Whitey was gone and they were both mourning him, more than anything she was glad she had Lucas. No, she did not know if she would have him after she asked him the big, gnawing, persistent, butterfly-ridden question that refused to leave her alone. She didn't even know if they would make it to Karen's Café without getting in a fatal car accident, or being hit by a giant falling meteor. But as they turned onto River Street and the familiar café came into view, she had him, and she was thankful for that.

Luckily, no one drunk came barreling down the street in an 18-wheeler, and the sky was graciously clear of any freak falling meteors, so they pulled in front of the wildly popular, yet still quaint and homey café. For a brief moment as she looked through Lucas's window at the familiar structure in front of them, her thoughts drifted back to that group of teenagers she had seen walking down the sidewalk; when she and Lucas walked into the café and were greeted warmly by Karen, Deb, Haley, and Nathan, the feeling that she was just a wild teenager became a bit overwhelming. She almost felt like painting the town red, winning state with her tight-knit squad, and maxing out her daddy's credit cards in just a day's worth of shopping at the mall.

She was grateful when that feeling went away.

"Sit down, you two," Karen insisted, patting the countertop with her free hand. Her other hand was supporting the weight of her daughter, who was sitting on her hip and nodding off against her shoulder.

Brooke smiled at the sight, and waved a little to Lily, who smiled sleepily at her before closing her eyes.

"She's gotten so big!" she whispered to Karen, taking a seat next to Haley, who leaned in for a one-armed hug. It had been forever since the two had done anything but chat for five minutes on the phone, and even though their reunion was the result of an awful tragedy, Brooke knew that if they didn't take the opportunity to catch up properly, that would be just a big a tragedy as Whitey dying. He had always told them to keep their friends close, to never waste time they could spend being happy together by being mad at them over inconsequential things. For the most part, Brooke adhered to this advice, but there was one case...one very sensitive case in which she disregarded her old surrogate grandpa's words completely.

_I wonder if she..._

Rather than letting herself actually have that thought, she talked over it as she leaned down to give Naley's newest son Bryan, who was sitting in his mother's lap and looking wide-eyed at all the people, a little kiss on the top of the head. "Well, hello there, Tutor Son! It's Auntie Brooke, remember me?" She grinned up at Haley, who rolled her eyes. "Can you say Auntie Brooke? An-tee Broooooooke. Come on."

For the first time in the past two days, everything felt like it was going to be okay. As she tickled Bryan's little belly, felt Lucas's thumb gently rubbing her back, talked reflectively with Nathan and Haley about all the advice Whitey had given them, got the skinny on how successful the café had become from Karen, and laughed good-naturedly when Deb accidentally dropped the jar of biscotti, she felt like she was home. At one point, she looked over at Lucas with a small smile, which he returned, and she felt it deep in her bones. Whitey was there with them in that moment, watching them from heaven, or limbo, or some basketball court on a higher plane, and he was happy that they could remember him with such fondness. Sure, there would be more tears to cry, more photographs to weep over, more times she would wish he hadn't died so she could ask him for advice. But it would all be okay, in the end, because he was watching over them.

She must not have been the only one to feel his presence in the otherwise empty café, because a few seconds later, Haley lovingly kissed Bryan's cheek and asked him quietly if he remembered his big unofficial grandfather. Brooke remembered the day Haley gave birth to Bryan with perfect clarity, and she could perfectly recall the look of pride on Whitey's face as Nathan told him that they were going to give their second son his first name. It had been perfect, a perfect tribute, a perfect way to let Whitey live on in their lives. She knew that the little guy would more than live up to his namesake, and according to Nathan, he was already showing all the signs of being an ace basketball player.

That was, almost to a tee, how she had wanted her life to turn out ever since she had started dating Lucas. The big family that cared about each other, all their little babies running around and playing together, standing up at each other's weddings to make toasts about all the love...would she and Lucas have that soon? The somber reason they were back in Tree Hill had dissuaded anyone from making too many jokes, as occupied with their grief and past ghosts as they were, so she hadn't had to fend off any of the usual 'when are you and Lucas getting married?' questions that generally peppered any conversation with Karen and Deb.

When _would_ they get married? She had wondered that a lot, up until recently. Was her big, dream wedding even worth it now that Whitey would not physically be there to give her away? Could she still ask Lucas to do this with her, now that their lives were down one sage old man to give them helpful advice and make the most complicated things seem so simple and clear?

Brooke let her head lay against Lucas's shoulder, much like Lily's was laying against Karen's, and closed her eyes when she felt his strong arm secure itself around her waist. The world fell away for a few minutes, finally, and the sudden silence gave her a much needed chance to clear her head. Now was not the time to be thinking about her future with Lucas, not when she had to work through the turmoil Whitey's death had left in her mind. More than ever, she wanted to just curl up under a blanket with a nice cup of Karen's coffee, because that in itself would make all her problems go away. The warmth of Whitey's presence was still there, surrounding her just like Lucas's embrace, but now she almost wished it would go away so she would not have to feel her every sense be filled with him. His smell was almost under her nose; Lucas's arm could almost be his arm, giving her a big bear hug; Nathan's voice two stools down could almost be Whitey's, telling Karen some romantic story about his late wife, Camilla.

God, she was going to miss him.

Compelled to tell everyone this not so startling revelation, Brooke opened her eyes and opened her mouth to share.

She was effectively cut off by the tinkling of the bell over the door, and the arrival of Peyton Sawyer.


	3. Spare Thyself

**Author's Note:** I know, I know. Send me the death threats and throw the tomatoes. I went _forever_ without updating, but let's not be too specific with the number of weeks...slash months. I got really distracted with school, and the computer lab wasn't quite as available as I thought it was going to be, but I'm back in action, for your reading pleasure. And as a special treat, this chapter is quite a bit longer than I originally intended it to be! About _600 words _longer! Hopefully that will win me some grace.

Seneca the Elder once said:  
_"He who has injured thee was stronger or weaker than thee.  
If weaker, spare him;  
if stronger, spare thyself."_

**Chapter Three  
**_**Spare Thyself**_

_Shake. Lay flat. Fold. Crease. Fold again._

_It seemed like all she did lately was pack and unpack. First when going across the country to stay with her parents in California, then when moving into what would always be "Haley and Nathan's place", and finally when coming to stay in Peyton's bedroom. Or at least, it _should_ have been finally. But now she had to leave again; she had to cram everything she owned into her efficient-yet-stylish luggage and find some other big-hearted friend to take her in._

_Hopefully, the next friend wouldn't stab her in the back._

_For the _second_ time._

_Brooke felt rather than saw her former best friend come into the room. There was so much she wanted to say to Peyton, so much that she needed Peyton to understand. Maybe she was being a little overdramatic about all this, and the fact that Peyton had confessed her feelings for Lucas instead of confessing her scandalous janitor closet sex with Lucas did lend a lot of support to the "Stay With Peyton!" camp that had pitched tents in her heart. But she couldn't...she couldn't throw her heart into the middle of a raging battlefield again, not when she knew how much it hurt when the bullets struck. The fact that she knew a ballistic missile was headed right towards her made her even less inclined to remain buddies with the girl who had stolen her boyfriend the year before._

_"Brooke..."_

_Despite herself, Brooke stopped packing. She hated herself for every second she didn't put a new article of clothing in the open suitcase._

_"Don't go, please..."_

_She didn't want to go. She wanted Peyton to slap her on the back and tell her that she was just kidding, that she and Jake were planning a whirlwind cross-country trip to Vegas so they could elope, and that Lucas was all hers. Then she could laugh, congratulate the future Mrs. Jagielski on finally getting what she always wanted, and keep both her best friend and her boyfriend. She also wanted to be the head of a corporate fashion empire, a manicure that didn't get ruined three days after getting it, and a magic scale that always told her she was 115 lbs._

_None of those things were going to happen any time soon._

_"I don't want to," Brooke replied, setting her jaw and tossing clothing into her bag much less carefully than before. "But I have to."_

Just don't look at her_, she reminded herself. If she looked at her, she might forgive her, and that just could not happen._

_"Okay..." said Peyton, and Brooke almost thought she was going to get out of the house Scott free (she failed to acknowledge that, literally, that was the last thing she wanted). "All right, look. Just stop, all right?"_

_The tears in Peyton's voice did not evade Brooke's ears, but she couldn't find it in her body to feel sorry for her. This was, after all, the same person that had kissed her boyfriend, liked her boyfriend, and may or may not steal her boyfriend, and nobody with that kind of track record deserved pity. They deserved to be slapped, but since Brooke had done that already, she simply batted the blonde away and stared resolutely at the head of the bed._

_"What do I have to do to fix this?"_

_Shake. Lay flat. Fold. Crease. Fold again._

Don't look at her. Don't look at her. Don't look at her.

_If she looked at her, she might forgive her, and that just could not happen._

_"Brooke..." the desperation was becoming suffocating. She had to get out, and she had to get out _now_. "I'll do anything."_

_The funny thing was, Brooke knew that. Peyton would walk to China barefoot, naked, and singing Christmas carols at the top of her lungs if it kept Brooke around. But this time, Brooke didn't _want_ to be 'kept around'. She had to guard her heart before it was ripped to shreds again, and she had to guard her relationship before it was stolen from her...again. Yes, she was angry at Lucas, and yes, she was afraid that maybe they wouldn't even be together anymore after today. It would make all the sense in the world to just wait it out and see if they were going to be okay before she threw away the only real support system she had besides him...but she couldn't. Peyton had done too much damage to her already, and she would_ not_ be burned twice by the same fire._

_"Just..."_

Why can't you just stop talking?!_ Brooke wanted nothing more than to scream that at Peyton._

_She would tell her to shut up, that nothing she said could weigh with her anymore. Peyton had forfeited their friendship in favor of a boy that she didn't even have that great a chance of snagging. What about 'ho's over bro's' and 'buds over studs'? The stupid catchphrases just taunted her now, and reminded her of how stupid she had been to let Peyton back in. She should have _known_ that this would happen, that behind all the smiles and encouragement, she had just been lying in wait to take Lucas from her again..._

_"I don't want you to go."_

_There were so many things that _Brooke_ wanted to say to that. Like, "Do you really think I care what you want right now?", for example. Even when she was obviously the one in the wrong, that stupid fake blonde still managed to make everything about _herself_. She would try to rope Brooke in with her fragile emotional stability, and just like the idiot she had always been, Brooke would fall right into the trap..._

_Not anymore._

_She would never be vulnerable to a person so selfish, someone who thought that her feelings outshone those of the people around her._

_Pull. Close. Snap shut._

Don't look at her. Don't look at her. Don't look at her.

_If she looked at her, her steely gaze and strong jaw would crumble, and that just could not happen._

_"You know," she finally found her voice again. "You asked me earlier today if I love Lucas."_

_Zip._

_What a joke. It all came right back down to Peyton thinking that she knew how everyone else felt, and that her feelings were somehow more important or more reasonable. Because she loved Lucas, Brooke's feelings for him came into question. What kind of "best friend" thought that way? What kind of "best friend" stood in front of someone they apparently wanted to win the favor of, and insinuated that just because she had not said the words out loud, then they clearly weren't true. And what kind of friend thought she loved Lucas_ more_? It wouldn't take long for Peyton to draw into her broody artistic mind and come to the conclusion that because she separated from the man she 'really wanted' AND Lucas, that her feelings were clearly much more tortured and deep, and that Brooke could never love Lucas like _she_ could._

_What a joke._

_"And I have your answer."_

_Now she could look at her. She could look her right in her two-faced bitch of a face, and she could tell her what she needed to hear._

_"But you don't deserve to hear it."_

_She screwed her blotchy face into a wounded expression and whimpered, "Brooke..."_

_"No." Where before she had been unable to speak, now the adrenaline coursing through her veins made the words come easy. "I want you to understand something."_

_In truth, there were many things she wanted Peyton to understand. She wanted her to understand how she used all her problems to make people feel sorry for her, so they would put their own emotional baggage on hold to help her. She wanted her to understand that Lucas was her rock, and that if she ripped him out from under her again, then she would likely drown in the proverbial sea. She wanted her to understand that they were no longer friends, and that they never could be again. They hadn't really been friends for a long time, not since she had seen her and Lucas together on Peyton's webcam all that time ago...her heart had never really opened back up to Peyton. The trust was gone, and there was no friendship without trust._

_"As far as I'm concerned, this friendship is over."_

It's been over for a long time, Peyton...

_But she couldn't bring herself to say that._

_"And if we never speak again for the rest of our lives...that'll be fine."_

_The look on Peyton's face, the look of hurt mixed with anger, did not escape Brooke as she picked up her suitcase and brushed past her to the door. Likely she was rationalizing this in her head, telling herself that she was the underdog, that no one would understand her, that Brooke was the one being unreasonable and bitchy. If that's what she wanted to tell herself, then fine. Brooke was done dealing with analyzing her former friend's heart, because as she had just told her, their friendship was over._

_That did not mean, of course, that she couldn't still sense the way Peyton felt. She felt the confusion, the pain, the hope that this was all a dream. To the core of her heart, she hated to hurt another human being like this, but it was all about survival... Her heart would not survive another onslaught of betrayal. If she was going to save herself, she had to end this, and she had to end it before she had second thoughts._

Don't look at her again,_ Brooke warned herself as she stood under the doorway she had passed under a thousand times. They had shared so much together beyond the threshold of the door, and as she prepared herself to leave it behind for good, she hesitated and turned to meet Peyton's gaze once more._

_She felt her heart strive to forgive the crying woman in front of her._

_She felt her heart ache for that crying woman, because once she had been a crying girl._

_A crying girl she, herself, had promised to look after._

_But it was her heart she would be gambling with if she walked back into that room..._

_She chose to leave it once piece. Peyton would find her own way to mend the pain._

_"I gave you a second chance, Peyton," the tears bit at the back of her eyes, even as she struggled to keep her voice hard and resolute..._

_It betrayed her as she choked out, "And you blew it," and before the tears could spill down her cheeks, she tightened her grip on her luggage and walked away from the crying girl._

What little conversation took place after Peyton's arrival was uncomfortable and forced. No one wanted to mention anything that might make the situation more awkward than it already was, so no one was saying anything at all. Brooke had been trying to occupy her mind by playing with Bryan's toes, but having Peyton Sawyer within a twenty foot radius only served to bring back a slew of bad memories, many of which she had been trying to forget ever since the day of Haley and Nathan's recommitment ceremony.

Of course, it had been stupid and selfish of her to hope that Peyton would not return to Tree Hill for Whitey's funeral. The man had affected her life just as much as he had affected anyone else's, so of course she would want to come and pay her respects. Brooke just did not understand why she couldn't have come the day of the funeral and spared everyone else the awkwardness! She and Lucas had gotten there first, so they had the right to stick around, but she was just...hindering the reunion! Not to mention distracting Brooke from properly mourning Whitey! If she was worried about history repeating itself, or Peyton trying to reconcile, or dealing with all the memories of high school past, then how was she supposed to focus on the proper mourning process if that stupid blonde bimbo was...

Lucas sat down next to her and put his hand on her knee. "Hey."

Her irrational anger ebbed and she looked up from Bryan's wriggling digits to Lucas's twinkling eyes.

"Don't give me that look," she warned, recognizing that he was itching to tell her something that she did not want to hear.

"What look?" he replied innocently, squeezing her knee once, then stealing Bryan from her lap and setting him on his own.

"That look that means you're going to tell me that I'm being stupid for thinking what I'm thinking, but I really _so_ do not want to hear it, because you know I have the right to be irrational about this." She paused to watch him tickling Bryan's belly, and for a split second, she pretended Bryan was their baby, that Lucas was coddling him like he would their child, and that everything was going to be just fine. All the fight went right out of her. "Don't I?"

Lucas sat his godson up straight and let him chew toothlessly on his index finger. "Of course you do, ba -- "

"Oh, no you don't," she interjected, poking him in the side. "Don't you mindlessly agree with me. Not now."

A frown erased the I'm-about-to-tell-you-what-you-don't-want-to-hear twinkle from his baby blues, "I actually wasn't going to say anything about Pey -- " at the look on her face, he changed the direction of his sentence, " -- thing. I was going to ask if you're feeling all right."

"Me?" Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. "I mean, I'm mixed up about Whitey..."

"No, I'm not talking about Whitey." Hoisting Bryan up so that he could see the people walking on the sidewalk, Lucas shifted in his seat so that he could look her right in her eyes. Nervous, Brooke fiddled with the hem of her skirt and tried to avoid his gaze. "You don't look well."

Despite herself, she managed a small smile and looked up at him from under heavy eyelids, "That's just what every girl wants to hear."

The look on his face -- a new one that read 'don't think you can fool me' -- caused her to drop her gaze to the floor. He always managed to make her feel like he was looking right into the depths of her soul with just _one_ look, and of all the things he thought might be wrong with her, she did _not_ want him to pick up on the one thing that actually was.

"I'm fine, Luke, I promise," she tried to sound convincing, even as her eyes shot over to Peyton, who was having a cup of coffee with Nathan and Haley on the other side of the café. As she knew he would, Lucas caught her looking, and it prompted him to sigh and stand up.

"All right, come on."

Bryan squirmed uncomfortably in his uncle's arms, and let out a small cry that told Brooke he wanted to go back to his mother. Funny how she was picking up on all the subtle shades of his infantile crying now that... Was Lucas picking up on what was really bothering her? Her stomach gave an unwelcome lurch at the thought of him guessing what had her dashing off all the time after meals, and what was she going to do if he found... _it_ at the bottom of her suitcase? It's not like she could explain it away as one of her friends', its mere presence among _her_ things on a road trip was kind of incriminating...

_Right! Stop thinking about that, he's not a mind-reader..._

"Where are we going?" she asked a bit apprehensively, pushing herself to her feet.

"For a walk," he answered simply. "Just let me get Bryan back to Hales."

Brooke nodded and followed him as far as the door. The café really hadn't changed much since their senior year of high school. The record-shaped open/closed sign, the map with famous artists' names dotted across it, the perpetual smell of coffee and baking... It was like being eighteen again, confused about the world, her heart, her future...

As she watched Haley take a willing Bryan from Lucas's arms, she realized that her life now was achingly similar to what it had been in high school.

As she watched Peyton give Lucas a small smile, which he returned, she loathed that her life in high school had followed her to this point.

Overwrought, she pushed the door open and hurried down the café's stairs.

Lucas was at her side in five seconds, "Hey..."

"I know, I know, I'm stupid."

The tears pooling in the corners of her eyes were equally stupid. She would never forgive them if they messed up her mascara...

"You're not stupid." Brooke could almost hear the smile in his voice as he cupped her chin between his fingers.

"It's just...it's so hard," she gushed, feeling all of her emotions spill over for the first time since he had sat down across from her at dinner and told her the terrible news. "Whitey's gone, and I just can't believe that he's dead...I half expect him to come strolling by any moment, talking about stupid bucking broncos or to tell me a story about Camilla, and I just can't believe he's never gonna see another basketball game again." The floodgates opened wide and all the tears she hadn't cried for Whitey spilled over tenfold. Her throat burned as she continued to croak out her confessions, "And that I'll never get to hug him, and that Bryan is never gonna get to know him, y'know? Or that he won't be there to give me away at our wedding, or that he'll never hold..." Here, she choked on her words and buried her head in Lucas's chest.

He immediately wrapped his strong arms around her hips and pulled her closer. The tears flowing from her eyes bled through his t-shirt, and when she realized the damage she was doing to the fabric, she pulled back and rubbed her eyes furiously. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I just..."

"Shhh," he whispered tenderly, pulling her hands away from her face and stroking them. "It's all right, I know. I know it's hard."

They stood together like that for a few minutes, Brooke pulling herself together, Lucas lending her the strength to do so.

"It's gonna be all right, okay?" He put both hands on her cheeks and stroked them lightly with his thumbs.

"It will, I know..." No matter how many times she nodded the affirmative, however, she couldn't shake the feeling that it would not be true. "I'm just so...confused slash emotional slash...I just don't like her being here! It's throwing me off and...I just really want this all to be a dream."

She put her head back on Lucas's chest, and wrapped her arms tight around him. As if realizing that she needed to feel that he was hers, Lucas returned the gesture and returned his hands to the back of her hips. "Maybe with all this...maybe Whitey dying is a good time to try and put it all behind us?" Brooke tried to fight the frown that tugged at the corners of her lips. "It's been a while, we've all grown up...we're different people. And, I mean, look at Whitey. Life's too short to spend it not giving people second chances."

Slowly, unable to believe what she was hearing, Brooke pulled away from Lucas again. This time, her face was the picture of disbelief. "Are you kidding?"

The look on his face, _this _one a mixture of I'm-about-to-tell-you-what-you-don't-want-to-hear and don't-take-this-the-wrong-way-but-I'm-sort-of-right, told her all she needed to know.

"You want me to _forgive_ her?" The thought was completely unacceptable, and not just because she was being stubborn in holding onto the high school grudge. She knew, at least somewhere deep in the back of her brain, that she was being childish about the whole situation because here she was, years later, standing with Lucas's arms around her, but... the thought that Peyton was even anywhere near him seemed so threatening to her happiness, the life she had built up around her. If everything she and Lucas had built were to crumble, _she_ would crumble. Especially now, with everything that was going on in her head...

"I'm just saying..." he sounded like he wished he hadn't opened this can-of-worms, but there was something in the set of his jaw that told her he wasn't going to let the issue die. "I have to...Brooke, I love you."

The way he said that did nothing to remove her frown; the tears threatened to return and reduce her to a crying girl. "I know you do. What's going on?"

There was a long silence between them, a long uncomfortable moment where neither of them had the desire to say anything at all. Brooke knew why _she_ was keeping her lips shut tight, but she could only guess at what was waiting to burst forth from behind _his_ lips. Whatever it was, she had the tiniest inkling that it was not going to be 'Will you marry me and can we spend the rest of our lives together AWAY from Peyton?'

Indeed, it wasn't.

"I've been...keeping in touch with Peyton."


	4. This Past

**Author's Note:** I'm terribly sorry that this took so long, I feel like a dreadful person, pleas throw tomatoes at me, feel free to leave angry comments detailing why I deserve nothing less than my keyboard taken away... ) The truth is, life caught up to me these last few months, and I had to put this story on the back-burner. But now that I've gotten my half-hearted apologies out of the way, I'm MORE than pleased to present chapter four! All comments, constructive and encouraging, are welcome.

All flames are captured and put on a pile of logs to fend off the winter weather.

Nathanial Hawthorne once wrote:_  
"Shall we never, never get rid of this Past?  
It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body."_

**Chapter Four**_**  
This Past**_

"I've been...keeping in touch with Peyton."

Two days ago, Brooke Davis had been breezing through life without a care in the world. Her life had revolved around Lucas, the adorable one-bedroom apartment she shared with him, her job, and figuring out how exactly she was going to tell him about the slightly _enormous_ news... She had been content to dance with him in the living room even though there was no stereo in their apartment; it had been a dream to cook meals for him with her own two hands because he looked so adorable when he was eating; even thought it often kept them from making rent on time, they had treated each other to ridiculously unnecessary presents and convinced each other to stay home from work just because. Sometimes they made love to each other for hours, then stayed up all night talking about nothing. A lot of the time, she fell asleep with her head on his lap as he read to her from one of his boring old books, and they would share a shower the next morning so he could explain to her what she had missed.

He would kiss her on the nose...

He would make her late for work because he thought she looked "too good to go anywhere"... not that she minded.

They would spend one part of Saturday in the library, and the other half in the mall...

She would convince him that bubble baths weren't for pansies if a naked girlfriend came included...

He would...

Go behind her back and talk to the _one person on the planet_ that she had explicitly asked him _never_ to have intentional contact with _ever_!

Two days ago she had been breezing through life without a care in the world, and she had been _stupid_ to do so. What had made her think that the high school drama was all in the past? Why had she tricked herself into believing that the two of them could spend the rest of their lives together without any more outside relationships interfering?

"You...?"

There were so many questions she wanted answers to. 'You've been doing _what_?' for example, to which he would hopefully reply with, 'Buying you an expensive Tiffany's necklace because I love you and would never go against your most specific wishes!' Or perhaps, 'Are you joking?' to which the most welcome response would be, 'Yes! Will you marry me?' Sure, that answer would earn him a hard slap to the cheek and a long, loud rant about how it was not nice to toy with her like that, but it would be better than hearing, 'No. We want to be together, and I'm leaving you for her right this second.'

The real question that was burning on her mind was 'How does it feel to break my heart again?', but she didn't think she had the stomach to hear his response. In fact, she didn't think she could stand to hear Lucas's voice at all, whether it was apologetic, sexy, sweet, kind, angry, hurt, frustrated, irritated, sarcastic, joking, or... well, emotional in any capacity. No matter what he said, she would not be able to forget that he had been sharing his voice across the phone line with another girl; another girl that Brooke had never stopped feeling inferior to, no matter how many times Lucas told her he was in love with her, or kissed her, or made love to her, or gave her breakfast in bed, or bought her pretty presents. How much did he _really_ love her if he couldn't give up the _one thing_ Brooke had asked him to? How much did he really want to be with her if that small, straightforward task was so difficult? Despite the years they had spent together, the hours spent sleeping next to each other, the countless arguments and make-ups, Brooke had obviously failed to capture his heart as much as he had captured hers, whereas Peyton had somehow managed to while on the other side of the country!

He had been keeping in touch with Peyton while Brooke was out shopping, while Brooke was in the shower, minutes after Brooke had kissed him goodbye, while Brooke was sleeping in the other room, while he was on his way to work... She found herself thinking back on every time she had walked into their apartment to find him putting the phone back on the hook. Wrong number or Peyton? Nathan or Peyton? Karen or Peyton?

As she looked up into the face of the man she loved and saw the guilty lines marring his forehead, the anxious look in his clear blue eyes, the small quirk in his lip as he waited for her to finish her sentence, she could not help but think that it was _always_ Peyton.

"Peyton," she breathed, raking a hand through her wavy hair and taking a step back. "_Peyton_?"

Lucas matched her step and looked at her imploringly, "Please, don't be mad, I -- "

The word came to her lips like they always did when Lucas failed to understand her feelings. "I'm not mad, Lucas..." Before he could swoop in to give her a hug and a heartfelt apology, Brooke brushed past him and walked as fast as her four-inch stilettos would allow. "Not mad..."

Her thoughts carried her all over Tree Hill, from Karen's Café to the Crescent Theater, from the neighborhoods she used to party in to Tree Hill High School, from the football field to the river walk. After over an hour and a half of wandering around, the symphony of throbs in her feet forced her to sit down on a lonely bench by the railing. She had never been one to sit down across from all the open stores without any intention of buying anything, but as she watched the large crowd of the usual shoppers and out-of-towners, she felt so removed from their carefree happiness that the task of crossing the street to put her credit card to good use seemed too heartbreaking to attempt. To add insult to injury, the teenagers she had seen hanging out on River Street earlier that day were buying ice cream from one of the many vendors along the river walk, and Brooke noticed that two of them seemed to be one of those adorable high school couples who walked everywhere with their arms linked and called each other things like 'baby' and 'honey'...

The kind of couple she and Lucas had once been.

Did that boy have a sordid emotional connection to that girl's best friend, one that threatened to rip apart the very foundations of their friendship, and would one day lead to him breaking his girlfriend's heart because the temptation to be with the other one was too strong to fight? Did that girl who was laughing and taking a bite of her boyfriend's ice cream feel as apprehensive and unsure about herself as Brooke did that very second? Did the two of them have some kind of unspoken bond of heartbreak that they would never talk about, but that existed nonetheless?

_Oh God, shut up_, she begged her Inner Brooke, putting her head in her hands and staring hard at the satin pattern on her favorite red Jimmy Choos. She had worn them on her birthday earlier that year with her light heather gray wool knit jacket and really cute red jersey dress, and they went _perfectly_ with the red Chanel sunglasses Lucas had surprised her with (he had presented them to her a recycled box from Best Buy). Even though she wanted to think about anything _but_ Lucas and Peyton, the train of thought her Jimmy Choos had led her on ended at Did Lucas Ever Buy Peyton Chanel Station, and that question snowballed into fifteen hundred other questions about what little things Lucas had done for Peyton because his witch of a controlling girlfriend had forbidden him to speak to her.

Or say her name.

Or...think about her.

_Oh, great! It's probably all _my_ fault that this happened in the first place!_

The large red jewels on the toe of her Jimmy Choos glinted in the sun as if to say, 'Yes, Brooke. Feel guilty! This is all your fault!' For about five seconds, Brooke considered believing her precious shoes; they were Jimmy Choos, after all, and she had not paid $615 to be ripped off by bad advice in times of crisis! If they _were_ right and it _was_ all her fault, then it had been really selfish of her to storm away from Lucas before he had a chance to explain himself. Or maybe they were _wrong_, and he had only been 'keeping in touch with Peyton' because she called him all the time and wouldn't leave him alone? He didn't love her or even really want to talk to her, but her incessant voicemails, e-mails, IMs, text messages, and letters had broken him down, and he was only trying to find a nice way to tell her that they couldn't talk to each other anymore!

_Ohhhh. _Another thought sprang to Brooke's mind. _THAT'S why he told me! He wants me to come up with a way to help him get out of this mess!_

When the elation that idea caused her died back down, she slumped down on the bench and let out a heavy sigh. Who was she trying to kid? Lucas had probably contacted Peyton at the first opportunity because _he_ missed _her_, and maybe even because he wasn't supposed to want to track her down. It had all been the same old forbidden fruit scenario, and Brooke had led them all right into it with her altruistic, painfully simple requests that her _boyfriend_ refrain from speaking to the girl that had _ripped apart _their first relationship!

Five minutes later, when she was trying and failing to stop beating herself up over getting herself beaten up, a familiar voice shouted her name from within the busy shopping crowd. Brooke lifted her head and felt an easy smile tug on her lips, because the person striding towards her was none other than future Senator of North Carolina, Marvin Mouth McFadden. Somehow, the mere sight of her faithful friend made her forget all about the ugly relationship problems back at Karen's Café, and when she stood up to receive his big bear hug, it was with the sincerest of happiness.

"It's so good to see you!" she said, squeezing him hard and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

Mouth smiled slightly at her and pulled away, "You too. Just wish it could be for a..."

"A better reason?" Brooke matched his sentimental smile and nodded at the bench. "Sit with me?"

"What're you doing out here anyway?" asked Mouth innocently, taking the seat next to her and shooting her a confused look. "I thought we were all going to meet up at Karen's Café?"

The light smile that had leapt to her face at his appearance quickly straightened into a thin line, and she looked down at her Jimmy Choos for guidance. Luckily, Mouth knew her well enough to realize that something other than Whitey was weighing on her mind, and the gentle hand he placed on her shoulder was just enough to make her look back up at him and let the floodgates down.

"I know it's pathetic of me, because we're all here because of Whitey, and it's supposed to be all about him because it would be selfish to think about ourselves right now, but Lucas just told me that he's been talking to Peyton, and I know what you're going to say because I know that you think I'm being stupid for still not wanting to be friends with her, but it's so not about that right now."

Her breath hitched in her throat, and Mouth moved his hand from her shoulder so he could wrap his arm around her. Vision clouded by her tears, Brooke leant into Mouth and plunged on with her miserable confession. "Because I just don't understand how he could keep talking to her even when I _asked him not to_, because I thought he loved me and wanted to be with me, and shouldn't he be able to respect the one tiny request that I make? I mean, seriously, it's not like I asked him to cure cancer for me, or go to the moon and get me a moon rock, I just wanted him to never talk to _one person_, and he couldn't even do that for me, and he's supposed to _love_ me?"

She could tell that Mouth wanted to say something, but now that she was letting all of her feelings out, she didn't care to stop. These thoughts had been bouncing around in her head for a while now without anyone but her to hear them, and now that they had an audience, they wanted to keep center stage. "It's not like I haven't sacrificed to be in this relationship with him, you know. I love him so much, and we've been so happy for so long, and there's so much that I can see myself doing with him, like...like..." The words stopped at her lips, and instead of trying to force them out, Brooke buried her head in Mouth's shoulder and soaked his shirt with her tears.

Instead of saying anything, Mouth simply wrapped his other arm around her and let her cry. Her mind jumped back to high school, and how worthless she had felt the first time Lucas had gone behind her back with Peyton; now she just felt betrayed, because Lucas had helped her rebuild her heart, had taught her how to trust again, had made her feel so special and safe... _Safe._ Exposed, vulnerable, naked, but _safe_.

_And what did that get you? Another shoulder to cry on because of Lucas._

"I just don't understand," she murmured, her voice tired and cracked. "It just can't be happening, because...because..."

Mouth moved his hands to her shoulders and slowly pulled himself away from her. "Brooke...hey, look at me, okay?"

Reluctantly, because she knew that her face was red and blotchy, Brooke raised her eyes to look at him.

"Why can't it be happening?"

The question struck her right in her gut; Mouth had always been perceptive, but this was astounding. It hadn't even been ten minutes since she had stood up to hug him, and now he was reading her like an open book, just as easily as he had when she had been a fragile high school girl. It wouldn't do any good to lie to him, because he would pick up on it before she even finished a sentence, and there was no point in changing the subject. What else would they talk about, Whitey's death? How great it was to be back in Tree Hill, even though every time she set foot in the goddamn town she seemed to get torn apart by a nuclear bomb? What kind of shampoo he was using now?

The look in his eyes told Brooke that, no, they could not talk about any of those things because he wasn't as stupid as she hoped he was.

Something in her felt like she _could_ tell him, even though the first person that deserved to hear the news was Lucas. Mouth wouldn't give her secret away, because he cared enough about her to keep it to himself, he cared enough about her to respect her wishes, he cared enough about her to care about her feelings. He cared about her more than Lucas did, that was for sure. He wouldn't judge her, wouldn't accuse her, wouldn't ask her why she hadn't been more careful...he would help her, talk to her, console her, congratulate her, do whatever she needed him to do. It wasn't because he was pathetic, or spineless, but because he was her friend.

Even though Lucas and Peyton were talking to each other, Whitey was dead, God hadn't invented a good enough hangover pill to cure her after-party woes, and she hadn't talked to Mouth McFadden face-to-face for three years, he was still her friend, and he would understand. Sure, within ten minutes of seeing him again, she had overwhelmed him with a tearful monologue about her relationship problems, cried on his shoulder, held onto him for dear life, and all-in-all spoiled what should have been a happy reunion, but he was still her friend, and he understood.

So, Brooke really felt like she could tell him why Lucas could _not_ be betraying her again.

Mouth really looked like he wanted to know.

Her heartbeat sped up, and her feet started throbbing inside her Jimmy Choos.

She had been keeping this inside herself for weeks now, wanting to let it out, but nervous about what would happen when she did. Would Lucas care? Would _Mouth_ care? On top of that, did _she_ care? Was this really what she wanted? If she told Mouth, there would be no way to take it back... Did she really want to seal off all chances of escape like that? Did Mouth even know that there _was_ some deep, dramatic reason that she wouldn't meet his eye? For all he knew, it was because she had already booked the church for her wedding and could never get that money back!

"Brooke?"

_Okay, so he knows. I CAN lie to him. I really can!_

Her lips parted and the words flew out before she could stop them.

"I'm pregnant."


	5. A Reopened Wound

**Author's Note: **Thought I'd try something new and switch it up this chapter. Tell me what you think of the POV change, yay or nay? As yet another form of my sad, pathetic penance, this chapter is the longest and most multi-faceted of the story so far, so I hope you forgive me for yet another long update drought, and hope that you'll stick with me to the end because even more surprises are coming!

xoxo

George Eliot once wrote:  
_"With memory set smarting like a reopened wound,  
a man's past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present:  
it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a still quivering part of himself."_

**Chapter Five  
**_**A Reopened Wound**_

_"So, you my date tonight, Luke?"_

_It was pretty easy for Lucas Scott to understand Queen Brooke's sudden and unexpected amorous interest in him. He was, after all, exactly the broody tortured artist type with enough world experience gleaned from literature capable of decoding the nonogram that was the complicated female mind. He had game. At least, that's what his best friend Haley had told him the other night after a particularly rousing game of miniature golf on the roof of his mom's café, and the fact that she herself was a girl lent a lot of credibility to the idea._

_Who was he kidding? It was a shitty idea, and Haley was clearly tutoring one too many people because her brain had finally crapped out on him. Also, if he ever heard her use the phrase "you've got game" ever again, he would personally schedule her lobotomy._

_With the infamous head cheerleader standing in front of him with her come hither eyes and sexy dimpled smile, he knew that he knew absolutely _nothing_ about anything to do with girls' brains. One minute he was at the bottom of the trash heap because he drove a tow truck and lived in a tiny one-bathroom house with two mortgages and no cable, the next he was standing on top of a gold-plated pedestal because of one good night of high school basketball and suddenly every girl with a sex drive was baking him cookies or hiding naked in his car. Okay, he understood that in high school status was everything, and that your popularity was determined by your last big win or your last bad hair day. High school was easy to figure out._

_But _girls_. What was _up_ with them?_

_He appreciated a killer smile and mile-long legs as much as the next hot-blooded male, but he also appreciated a little integrity and a little self-respect. From what he had seen so of her so far (and he had seen _a lot_ so far) Brooke Davis had neither quality._

_"You know, Brooke," he looked right down into her eyes, trying to ignore the warmth of her body against his arm, "you don't have to act like this."_

_Her sultry bedroom face slowly cracked and gave way to a wide smile that brought out the golden flecks in her irises. He'd seen that smile before, in the hallway, in the classroom, on the sidelines at the basketball court, in the backseat of his car... She was going to correct him with such certainty, and she was going to say it in that husky whisper talk that made it difficult for him not to give in, and she was going to leave him speechless without having to remove a single stitch of clothing. Now that he had her game figured out, maybe he could --_

_"I know that."_

Wait,_ his Inner Lucas's thought train screeched to a halt,_ what?

_His eyebrows knitted together in confusion as she kept talking. "But you're the first guy to ever say it."_

_Brooke laughed her cute little laugh and turned to look out at the burning boat; the second her eyes left his, the window that allowed any insightful look into her mind was immediately slammed shut. When she pulled away and looked up at him with that same dimpled pout from before, he felt like he understood her and her motives even less than he had thirty seconds ago, and he felt like he probably never would. _Was_ she after him just because he could score from behind the 3-point line and win the game at the buzzer, or did she actually like him? Or was this all just some mind game that was ultimately going to leave him out in the cold?_

_"You do your thing and try to resist. It's actually kind of cute."_

_He felt her move across his back, heard the sound of her heels against the concrete, and realized how cold his right side felt without her hand resting on his bicep. Had he flexed enough? Which cologne had he put on befo - _Oh, shit.

_Despite the fact that he was riding high on the crest of The New Scott In Town victory against Hickory Point, it was obvious that Brooke Davis was the one with all the game._

As 23-year-old Lucas watched a group of Tree Hill High students playing a game of pick-up ball from the bleachers at the Rivercourt, he felt every bit as hopeless and confused as he had as a Junior in high school. There had been some romantic, almost literary notion in the core of his heart that with time, the scars from high school would be smoothed over completely and would never have occasion to reopen. That same romantic idea had seeded itself to plant another impossible flower of hope, several years ago when he had first gone against Brooke's wishes and contacted Peyton; the plant hadn't shot up in full bloom immediately, but he had certainly kept it watered and in the sunlight. With every long distance phone call he made, with every letter he had addressed to Peyton Sawyer, 3103 Carrington St, Los Angles CA 90004, with every instant message conversation he had had with fauxdilocks88, with every short text message and Hey-How-Are-You-Doing he had ever sent... with all those things he had nurtured the flower and allowed it to grow, all with the ridiculous wish that Brooke would see it and let it stay in the garden.

Lucas ran his hands over his face to clear his mind, and decided he really had to stay away from Microsoft Word for a while and take an extended break from metaphors. As he stared down at the bleak gray concrete through the openings in the bleachers, he heard the sound of tennis shoes scuffing the pavement nearby, but he assumed it was just another high school guy intent on joining the game. He was just some washed up has-been with really poor decision-making skills, and the only reason he still even remotely belonged on the Rivercourt was because he had grown up on it. That the was the only feeble claim he had to the small outdoor basketball court, that and his name scrawled in Sharpie on the back of one of the goals.

"Hey."

The footsteps stopped, and he looked up to see his brother.

"Oh," he felt a wave of relief wash over him. Something to take his mind off Brooke, Peyton, flowers, and memories. "Hey."

Nathan sat down sideways at the bottom of the bleachers and raised his eyebrows expectantly. "Well?"

"Well what?"

There was a short pause when Nathan turned his head to watch a tall kid with trashed sneakers and an impressive vertical slam the ball into the hoop. The sound of leather slamming against chain link was somewhat invigorating, and brought back a whole plethora of memories: Mouth sitting where Nathan was sitting, with a pen for a microphone in one hand and a crappy tape recorder in the other; Skills, Fergie, and Junk going at the ball full force, trash talk and expletives flying as they battled for bragging rights... The guys on the court were nothing like Lucas or his friends, they played differently, they had different ways of dragging each other down, different ways of --

Nathan broke him out of his mental reverie by looking back up at him, and Lucas ran a hand through his hair to get his mind back on the present. "Well?"

"I asked you first, man."

Lucas rolled his eyes and leaned forward, "Why. Are. You. Here?"

"The café has big windows, you know." Nathan's eyebrows were back up in a really infuriating arch. "And I'm not blind. So, well?"

"Well," replied Lucas with a sigh, putting his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on one fist. "I screwed up."

"No surprises there," said Nathan with such simplicity that Lucas couldn't muster up the glare he so wanted to shoot at him. It was true that he had a bad habit of screwing up -- it's not like he denied he was, occasionally, no matter how intelligent his college degree supposedly made him, stupid. The fact that everyone _else_ had no trouble denying that fact either was what really made him feel like crap. "What'd you do this time? Accidentally do the wrong thing even though you were doing what she asked you to do, except you were supposed to figure out that you weren't supposed to do it?"

Lucas matched Nathan's raised eyebrows with his own. "You speak from experience, of course."

"That obvious?" Nathan slung one arm across his knee and steered the conversation back in the direction he wanted it to go. "I guess that's not it, then."

"Nope, though I did do that two weeks ago." The sounds of the pick-up game grew distant as Lucas sighed and turned his head a little to glance at the river. The bad thing about Tree Hill was that it was so small, everything was memorable, even the sound of a tow boat chugging upstream as the brilliantly choreographed lights of downtown slowly flickered on. He remembered the burning boat again, and a pick-up game a long time ago with a much bigger audience, and he knew that Brooke had stood next to Peyton and Haley and watched him play between coddling Jenny Jagielski and taking pictures with a Polaroid camera. He remembered Peyton's curls brushing back from her shoulders in the breeze; he could practically see her eyes glinting in the sunlight as she squinted to see him hooking her Mercury Comet Caliente up to his dusty tow truck as he tried to impress her with his knowledge of NOFX lyrics. "This mistake was more triangular."

"Dude."

Nathan's request for clarification did not need to be any longer than that, and Lucas ran his hand through his hair again before glancing back at his brother with a guilty look on his face. "It's this messy thing with Brooke and Pey -- "

"Ah, man," Nathan looked an impressive combination of irritated, unimpressed, disappointed, angry, and unsurprised. "You've gotta be kidding me," an agitated sigh punctuated his sentence, and Lucas likened his voice to stone cold metal when he spoke again, "what is it with you and those two? You're like incapable of being content with just one."

That wasn't exactly fair, but Lucas kept his mouth shut to allow his mind time to breathe. It was hard to explain how he could still be madly in love with Brooke even while going against her expressed wishes and checking in with Peyton every week or so...but he _was_ madly in love with her. Hearing her voice, her laugh, feeling the warmth radiating from just the mere thought of her... He was done waxing poetic for the day, but he knew that no matter what mistakes he made while loving her, that's exactly what he did; he loved every curve, every breath, every hair, every inch of her. He just had this frustrating Dan-like habit of being unable to really, truly show that he did.

He was, on the other hand, the king of making it look like he _didn't_.

There was a long, contemplative moment between the two brothers when neither of them felt any desire to speak because there was really nothing to be said. A few birds flew overhead, a handful of cars sped by on the beat up old road, and his ears tuned back in to the background basketball noise. A long time ago, in a smelly gym with broken lights and rat-infested walls, a really wise man had told him to let the game heal his wounds, and as he watched the faded orange basketball sail through the hoop and bounce solidly back on the ground, he felt an ache to do just that.

Apparently, the guys on the court had the same idea, and just as Nathan stood to say something and leave, the tallest one with the trashed shoes gave a shout in their direction and bounced the ball right to him. It glided smoothly right into his little brother's hands, and Nathan spun it between his palms with an ease born of familiarity. "What?"

The group moved towards them, all different sizes and colors, and came to an almost unitary halt five feet from the grass. "Nathan and Lucas Scott, right?" one of the shorter kids asked, his arms crossed over his chest. Lucas stepped down from the bleachers, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Nathan who shot him a check-it-out-we're-legendary look, and slapped the ball right from between his hands so that it bounced into the kid's hands. The kid caught it and passed it right back without missing a beat. "Wanna play?"

The two brothers looked at each other, the group of Tree Hill Ravens, and the well-worn basketball goals.

Lucas grinned and shot the ball.

He'd dress the wounds later.

_

* * *

Brooke emerged from the black limo with a lot weighing on her mind. 24 hours ago, she had wanted this evening to end with her and some random basketball boy tumbling around in the sheets, but now as she walked towards the lone figure sitting alone in the dark, she never wanted another boy to touch her again. It had been good, she knew, that Mouth McFadden had been her boy toy date rather than Kelley or Gutierrez or whatever other Ravens had walked the runway, because now she knew that she had a lot of problems she needed to solve with her mind rather than her body._

_Of course, that meant that she actually had to, you know, _solve_ them._

_The first problem was, of course, the fact that she hadn't gotten her period and knew that it wasn't coming any time soon. But that problem, as daunting and terrifying and utterly inconceivable as it was, had nothing on problem number two, which made her want to curl up into a little girl with her teddy bear and cry. If she was late because she was pregnant, she could handle that because she knew she was the school's resident cheer slut. What else would she do with her life but have a baby before 18, never go to college, and live in poverty for the rest of her life trying to support her mistake? It was sort of written in the stars for her, and she didn't expect to have anything grand like true love, or a real family that ate dinner together and celebrated Christmases by _being_ together instead of _skiing_ together, or a life that reached into the world beyond high school. Brooke Davis was doomed, and she knew that._

_What made her feel sick was that she didn't even know who the father was._

_What made her feel even sicker was that it was a toss up between the boy who had cheated on her with her best friend and the random guy in the bar that she didn't even remember sleeping with because she had been smashed at the time._

Slut, _her Inner Brooke taunted. She didn't even try to argue._

_She reached the park bench and came to a slow stop in front of Lucas Scott. His eyes were so blue that she wanted to die._

_"I need to talk to you."_

_He answered with an unspectacular, "Okay."_

_Unspectacular. How appropriate._

_"I spent the whole night trying to avoid this or ignore it."_

_Mouth popping his head through the moon roof of her rented limo, watching him dance surprisingly well amidst the thick crowd in the club, taking him into the back room to get his first ever lap dance... She remembered all the lecherous stares she had received while sitting with her legs crossed just so, and she felt disgusted with herself when she also remembered how welcome those stares had been at the time._

Slut_, Inner Brooke repeated._

"_But I can't so I've just got to say it."_

_"Brooke," Lucas looked so concerned, and she knew he really was. "What's up?" He was not the monster she wished he was, but the same Lucas Scott she had sipped coffee with and stolen fries from and kissed in the Jacuzzi at a stranger's house... He was just Lucas Scott, and for the first time since their hideous break-up she felt like maybe it _wasn't_ all his sick perverted male mind's fault that he had gone after Peyton. He was too good to really just mess up that bad on his own, wasn't he? He was the good guy, or at least he was supposed to be, and maybe she had pushed him into it somehow by not being good enough, by not being pretty enough, or smart enough, or interesting enough, or..._

_Blonde enough?_

_It hurt her to think that it was all her fault, and she felt doubly bad when the words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them, "I think..."_

"...I'm pregnant."

As 23-year-old Brooke Davis sat on the uncomfortable bench next to her comfortable friend Mouth, she felt every bit as lost as she had as a Junior in high school. Still wrestling with the Big Bad Unplanned Pregnancy issue, still the wounded heart trying to see good in Lucas even though his heart was torn between her and her former best friend. She knew that the course of true love was supposed to be a bumpy ride, or however the saying went, but wasn't there any stretch of love road that was paved and smooth and _enjoyable_? Now here she was, back in her hometown with a bun in the oven and a boyfriend in the doghouse, and she was utterly and completely heartbroken.

_'Pregnant,' _said her Inner Brooke. _'You _told_ him you were _pregnant

_'Preggers.'_ Brooke thought back. _'Yes, that's what I told him. With child. Bun in the oven -- '_

_'Knocked up,'_ Inner Brooke interjected.

_'Screwed over,'_ corrected Brooke.

Mouth looked at her for a long minute, during which she was positive he was going to stand up and announce to the world that Brooke Penelope Davis was a dirty, rotten liar and deserved to be thrown into the river as punishment for her unforgivable dishonesty. But when he wrapped his other arm around her and pulled her into an even tighter embrace, she knew he believed her and that caused a fresh wave of tears to pour down her face. Her arms immediately went around him and she clung on for dear life.

It was such a strange place to cry, in the middle of a lively boardwalk with the hot July sun shining down on her pity party bench. The entire world seemed to shrink down to that one moment, and the reality of her situation struck her to the core. "I'm only 23," she choked out. "I'm too young to be pregnant, I'm gonna be a horrible mother because now Lucas is gonna leave me to be with Peyton and my baby isn't gonna have a daddy!" Her grip on Mouth's polo shirt tightened and she clenched her eyes shut to shun Real Life. "And actually, my baby won't have a mommy either because I'm going to _kill_ Peyton _AND_ Lucas and go to jail, so it'll wind up in some foster home with twenty other kids like in that movie with Mary-Kate and Ashley, and then someone else will adopt it and -- "

Her second tirade was abruptly cut off by Mouth pulling away and put his hands on both sides of her head. "Take. A. Breath," he instructed, nodding her head to enunciate each word, and stroking away her tears with his thumbs. His eyes were so blue like Lucas's, his words were so firm and yet so helpful just like Lucas's, he did all the little things to calm her down just like Lucas...

Slowly but surely, her breathing evened out and she folded into Mouth and quietly cried. Her lips stayed together, her mind finally shut up, and her throat stayed clenched shut against sobs, and the only things left were the salty drops of water trembling down her nose. Mouth rocked her slowly for what could have been ages, and she tried to pretend she was a little girl again and that she was crying over a cut finger or a broken doll. The large summer crowd seemed to fall deathly quiet, the sun sank behind a filmy gray cloud, and Brooke cried. She cried for Whitey and all the conversations she would never have with him, she cried for Camilla because she had never known her, she cried for all the time Nathan and Haley had lost because of pettiness, she cried for Jimmy Edwards, Keith, Dan, the old apartment where she had baked that stupid pie, all the one night stands she'd ever had, all the beers she'd ever drank, little Jenny and stable Jake, the cabin in the middle of the woods, and she cried for all the secret letters and text messages Lucas had sent to Peyton when he couldn't get away to talk to her on the phone...

She spent so many tears on so many thoughts that she cried herself to sleep.

When she woke up, she was wrapped in a warm afghan on an unfamiliar couch, and there was a steaming cup of tea sitting on a coffee table directly in front of her. Her face was stained with dry tears, and every functional part of her brain was telling her to go back to sleep so she could escape her horrible day, but the ever-present spark of resiliency in her bones forced her to sit up straight and study her surroundings. Obviously she was at Mouth's house, or at least a house with a lot of pictures of him and his family in it; more unexpected than waking up in the totally foreign house after falling asleep on a bench in the middle of town was the sight of Rachel Gatina sitting regally in an armchair near the fireplace.

"Whore."

Brooke glared across the room at the smirking redhead. They had lived together in their Senior year of high school, after Brooke's falling out with Peyton, and their heated rivalry had turned into a weird semi-friendship blissfully void of any I-wanna-sleep-with-your-boyfriend-real-fast-just-cos-I'm-a-selfish-bitch drama.

"Bitch," Brooke replied with a pout.

Rachel simply smirked wider. "Slut."

Despite the slight sting she felt at that insult, it was comforting to know that _some_thing hadn't changed.

"What are you doing here?" Brooke asked as she pulled the afghan tightly around her shoulders. Now that she was fully awake and pretty sure that she was in Mouth's house, the fact that Rachel was lounging across from her in what _looked_ like one of Mouth's MIT sweatshirts was becoming more and more strange than it had been fifteen seconds before.

Instead of answering and making life easy for Brooke, Rachel slid out of the seat and moved to sit next to her on the couch. "So you're knocked up and Lucas has been talking to Peyton behind your back," she said simply, reaching forward to grab the cup of tea. Brooke took it when it was held out to her, but she lowered it to her lap without taking a sip. "That sucks."

"Yeah," she replied just as simply, staring down into the hot steam. "It really sucks."

"On the bright side," continued Rachel, as if Brooke hadn't said a word, "Now you can live the stylish life of the plucky independent single mother who doesn't need a man because you are all you need in the world."

She knew Rachel was trying to cheer her up, but the thought of raising a fatherless child brought a fresh river of tears to her eyes, and she felt utterly humiliated and weak as she heard them drop into the tea and onto her lap. She felt Rachel's hand on her knee, and looked up a few long moments later to see her friend offering her a weak smile and two uncharacteristically kind eyes.

"Listen, B," a clock somewhere chimed the hour, and Brooke realized just how late it was. "You know I'm not exactly sage advice girl. Hell, I can hardly get myself through the day in one piece." Brooke withdrew into the corner of the couch and very slowly pulled her now salty tea up to her lips to take a sip. She desperately hoped Rachel had slipped some Vodka in it because if there was _ever_ a time when she needed Vodka it was right that instant, but as the tea swirled down her throat, it tasted normal. A pout graced her lips, but was immediately wiped away when Rachel hit the knee she had previously been squeezing and stood up rather abruptly. "But I _can_ say that all of today's shit can go to hell, and you need to go to bed and sleep this off."

Brooke's eyebrows flew up and she looked back and forth between Rachel and the tea for a long second before responding, "I can't. I can't see Lucas right now...and I really was going to head over to the gym to get all reminiscey about Whitey..." The tears increased twofold as she pictured the man's weathered, lined, distinctive smiling, scowling, laughing, sober face in her mind, and the guilt for worrying so much about her own stupid, insignificant life drove her to let out a small groan of frustration. She couldn't even _mourn_ properly because she was so wrapped up in her own damn life!

Rachel, pleasantly unsympathetic, grabbed Brooke by the arm and pulled her up off the couch. "No, you idiot. You're staying _here_ in the guest room, and tomorrow Mouth's cooking just about every fattening breakfast comfort food you can imagine, and we're gonna talk all you want to about all of your problems _then_." The redhead kept her hand firmly on the crook of Brooke's arm as she led her down a picture-lined hallway and into a cozy looking room with a welcoming queen-sized bed. "Until then, you sleep, take a bubble bath, meditate, just clear your head and I'll see you tomorrow."

Then she nudged Brooke in the room and the door immediately snapped shut behind her.

Brooke sighed, pulled the afghan from around her shoulders, and tossed it onto the bed.

She'd dress the wounds later.


	6. Endure

**Author's Note:** I'm dirt. I'm worse than dirt, I'm slime. I'm green, disgusting, vituperative slime. And I mean that in the disgusting shadow of a human being kind of way. In any case, I've resolved to try and churn out these chapters as best I can as long as my writer's block has apparently abated...so if you don't see another chapter in a week, please message me and complain using violent language and begging/threats. Whatever you deem most appropriate.

Speaking of messages, thank you to those of you who sent me such messages, though they were neither violent or pleading (Brook-Lucas-Fan-23 and someone else I can't recall, my apologies! If you read this, please tell me who you are so I can thank you properly). They gave me the push I needed to actually try and smash through this writer's block, so this chapter would not be possible without you...Therefore, I dedicate it to the two of you.

Without further ado, the chapter!

Wait, more ado. If you find any grammatical errors, spelling errors, etc...please point them out to me, because I'm posting this RIGHT after finishing it. Thank you!

Mary Shelley once wrote:  
_"My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy,  
and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred,  
it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine."_

**Chapter Six  
_Endure_**

Brooke had hoped to rise gracefully out of bed on a cheerful July morning, completely ignorant of all the heartache she had suffered the day before. Of course, she had also spent the better part of her early childhood make believing she was a fairy princess living in a magical treetop garden kingdom with thousands of Tom Cruise shaped fairies to do her bidding, so when she opened her eyes the next morning and was immediately overcome by a tidal wave of sadness...she was not very surprised. Mouth's house was not situated at the top of a weeping willow tree, Tom Cruise was a kooky religion obsessed pedophile, Brooke did not possess untold magical powers, and Lucas Scott was a liar.

A sigh passed through her lips as she rolled over and looked out the window at the gray world on the other side of the glass.

Unwelcome thoughts of Lucas floated to the top of her mind as she pondered the rain and wondered when it would finally fall, but she sat up quickly to flush them out before any sweet memories could surface. There were far more important things to devote her mental energy to, such as Whitey, or the fact that it was his favorite holiday and the sun was buried under layers and layers of dark, ominous clouds. Even though the eerie daytime darkness more than matched Brooke's mood, she could not help but wish they had stayed away for just one day...the 4th of July had always been the day Whitey looked forward to more than any other, even the first Ravens basketball game of the season or his own birthday, and she hated to think of the children whose days would be ruined by the gloomy weather...

_Children_.

Her hand flew from her lap to her stomach and she slumped against the pillows, suddenly tired and a little embarrassed. It was bad enough that she had fallen asleep on a public bench in the middle of the crowded river walk during peak shopping hour, but what made it even _worse_ was that she had done so after tearfully confessing her top secret unplanned out-of-wedlock pregnancy to her good friend Mouth a full ten minutes after reuniting with him for the first time in three years.

Tree Hill definitely brought out the drama queen in her.

Determined not to dwell too much on the complicated mess her life had become since her date with Lucas three short days ago, Brooke pushed the covers aside and slowly slid to her feet. When she finally managed to find the light switch, she instantly regretted flicking it on. One look in the mirror told her that the nighttime hours had not been kind to appearance: her hair was a veritable nest, sticking up in ways she had never thought possible; her normally clear, light skin was stained with unsightly blotchy red patches; the makeup she had neglected to wash off the night before was running down her cheeks; to top it all off, she could still taste the tea from the night before, and she _knew_ that her toothbrush, extra clothes, and other essentials were packed away in the back of Lucas's car.

Brooke ran her fingers through her lifeless hair and, to her great displeasure, got them stuck in the mess. When the door opened and Rachel appeared looking clean and fabulous, it put the bright red cherry on top of her rather large sundae of misery.

"Shut up," she snapped before her friend could so much as snigger, but the warning did no good.

"Nice look, B," the smirk quirking Rachel's lips gave Brooke the adolescent urge to bury a hatchet in the redhead's throat. "All you -- "

"Where's a bathroom?" Brooke was determined to shower and clean herself up before she gave any more thought to anything.

Rachel walked into the room and shut the door behind her. There was a steaming hot cup of coffee in her left hand, and she stood strong in front of Brooke's only escape route. "What's the hurry? We haven't even had a chance to chat yet."

"Chat about what?" Brooke asked glumly, even though she knew just what.

"Sit down," answered Rachel, pushing her back to the bed and sitting down next to her.

The cup of coffee was in Brooke's hands before she could refuse it, and she automatically took a sip as she waited for Rachel to open the discussion.

A long few minutes passed, during which Brooke did nothing but look resolutely at the ground and take small sips of her coffee.

"Sucky day, isn't it?" Rachel finally said.

Brooke glanced up to see that Rachel was looking thoughtfully out the window, and realized that her friend was talking about the unfortunate weather rather than Brooke's personal predicaments. "Yeah...it is." When she felt Rachel's eyes leave the window a few moments later, she took that as a sign that those very predicaments were now going to be discussed at length.

It was hard to decide whether she was grateful or terrified. After all, while it would be a relief to have a female outlet for her confusion and frustration, the matter of her pregnancy was bound to come up, and she wanted to shove that piece of information somewhere dark and secret until she could tell Lucas about it. Too many people had found out before him, and since he _was_ the father, he had the right to know before she discussed it at length with anyone else.

Thankfully, Rachel started their conversation off as far as possible from pregnancy as was possible.

"Bevin and Skills called and asked about you."

Brooke set the now half-empty cup of coffee in her lap and frowned, "What?"

"Bevin and Skills. They went to the café around dinnertime and they wondered where you and Lucas were."

"Lucas wasn't there?" Brooke's frown deepened and she wondered just where her boyfriend had gone after their talk.

_Somewhere quiet with Peyton, perhaps?_ Her snide Inner Brooke had returned with a vengeance, but she did her best to block the voice out.

"No," Rachel shrugged, indicating she knew nothing more than that.

"I'll call Bev later...it'll be good to talk to someone who's -- "

"Too clueless to know anything's wrong with you?" interjected Rachel perceptively.

Brooke could not help the smile that came to her splotchy face. Rachel was becoming just as good as Mouth at reading her mind. "Exactly."

"But that doesn't mean _I'm_ not still going to talk to you, and I _know_ something's wrong. I just need more info than 'Brooke's pregnant. Lucas talked to Peyton behind her back.'" Rachel rolled her eyes and turned her body more towards Brooke, probably so that their conversation went back-and-forth rather than to the wall. "Mouth's a doll, honestly, but you'll have to give me the instant replay, because I'm useless to you if that's all I have to go on."

"Hm," Brooke's eyes flickered to the sparkling ring on Rachel's left hand and she decided to steer the direction in a less depressing direction, "if Mouth's a _doll_, where did that tiny little thing come from? Toys "R" Us?"

Her friend responded to that biting question with a glare, "Boo, you whore."

Brooke grinned innocently and grabbed Rachel's left hand so she could inspect the ring closer. A single glance told her well-trained eyes that this wasn't just _any_ engagement ring; she had done enough shopping in a certain jewelry store during her college stay in New York to recognize the exquisite and exclusive Etoile design of the ring...a round-brilliant diamond bezel-set in a glittering platinum band that could _only _have come from Tiffany & Co. She wasn't surprised to see the ring on Rachel's left ring finger, but she _was_ surprised that it had come from Mouth.

She looked up at Rachel with her eyebrows raised, "Went with the pavé band? Why am I not surprised?"

Rachel quirked an eyebrow back at her and slipped her hand out of Brooke's grasp. "Are you suggesting I'm trying to drain Mouth's bank account?"

"Last _I_ knew, $6,000 was just about his whole life savings."

"$6,350, to be exact," Rachel corrected her. "Of course, $3,000 of that was donated by my guilt-ridden father." She sounded smug.

"And why exactly was he so guilt-ridden?"

Rachel looked innocent, but Brooke had seen her in her natural face far too often to be fooled. "I might have pouted a little."

"Well, that's beside the point." Brooke waved her ringless left hand in the air to banish the meaningless $3,000 from the conversation. What she really cared about was the other $3,350 Mouth had dished out to keep Rachel in luxury. "How the _hell_ did Mouth afford the other half?"

Just when she had been certain the conversation was never going to turn towards Lucas, Peyton, or deceitful private conversations, Rachel turned the ring downwards on her finger so that the sparkling center diamond was resting against her palm. "_That_, B-the-conversation-avoider, is beside the point. What exactly happened that had my fiancé bringing home a stray bitch last night?"

Brooke sighed when she realized there would be no more avoiding the subject. "Fine."

She proceeded to tell Rachel every last sordid detail of the day before, from the tone of Lucas's voice when he had shared the horrible news, to the cologne Mouth had been wearing when she had fallen asleep on his shoulder. The story was complete when Brooke reached the bottom of her coffee cup and cast a sideways glance at Rachel while muttering "slut" out of the corner of her mouth.

Another silence filled the room as Brooke fiddled with the handle of her coffee cup and stared at the small ring of cream-colored caffeine at the bottom of it. When Rachel finally spoke, she did not console Brooke with words of comfort, she did not pat her back and tell her that Lucas was a jackass and a bastard or that he deserved to die painfully, and she did not soothingly say just the right words to make it all seem more bearable.

She did the exact opposite, just as Brooke had expected.

"Well, you know you overreacted." Rachel got to her feet and took the coffee cup easily from Brooke's weak grip. "He _told_ you, so you should have stayed and talked to him about it instead of storming off like the big drama queen you are."

For a brief moment, Brooke contemplated bitch-slapping the woman in front of her, but then she remembered the pricey rock on her punch-happy friend's finger and thought better of it. It would do no good, anyway, because Brooke knew down in her gut that Rachel was 100 percent right. Yes, Lucas had done wrong by going behind her back and doing the exact thing she had very sweetly (okay, she had ordered him and he had responded less than enthusiastically at first...but he had agreed, in the end!) asked him not to do, but he _had_ come clean and he _did_ deserve more than an overdramatic girlfriend who stormed off every time she did not get her way.

"I hate it when you're right," she muttered, refusing to look up at Rachel. She just knew the redhead would be wearing either a smug look or a 'well duh' expression on her face, and Brooke had a very hormonal need to feel that, even though it was wrong of her to storm off before giving Lucas a chance to explain his actions, she was at least entitled to be angry as all hell.

"Which is all the time. Now, about this baby thing..."

Brooke wished desperately for a hatchet.

When Rachel was finished putting her through the ringer for every possible detail about her pregnancy ("Is it a boy or a girl? Have you picked any names? Are you REALLY going to do the plucky single mother thing, because...blah blah blah blah blah..."), Brooke practically sprinted to the bathroom so she could fix her appearance. While she waited for the shower water to turn piping hot, she sat at the edge of the toilet seat and tried to make her mind go blank, or at least clear of everything pertaining to the baby that was growing inside her. Mouth had weaseled the truth out of her, and after Rachel the Merciless's in-depth interrogation, she was practically swimming in thoughts of diapers, midnight screaming, cradles, and stretch marks.

It had all started a few weeks ago, after a rather blissful night spent making love after their reunion dinner. They had not seen each other since the previous Christmas, due to her busy schedule during the end of her Senior year at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and they had been eager to make up for lost time...so eager that they had apparently thrown all thoughts of contraception to the wind. The pounding headaches and the missed period had made her suspicious at first, but the pregnancy test she had taken in mid-June had reassured her with its negative result, at least until Lucas had insisted she go to the doctor for her headaches. There she had described her symptoms and after several tests, learned the unexpected truth.

Now, a week after the revelation, she still had not been able to muster up the courage to tell Lucas, to ask him to raise their baby with her. The fears that had plagued her seemed a bit ridiculous now, as his own childhood would most certainly drive Lucas to do the right thing and be an active fixture in their baby's life. Hadn't he told her in their Junior year that he would be there for her? Sure, it had been a false alarm, but that did not change the fact that they _could_ have been pregnant and he _would_ have supported her. Their relationship was stronger than it had been then, so surely he would feel the same?

_Well_, snapped Inner Brooke as Regular Brooke rose from the toilet seat and shed her clothes, _maybe not after that show you put on yesterday._

Brooke stepped under the shower head and let the water run directly in her face, then down her tired body and into the drain. A howling wind was blowing outside the house, so loud that she could hear it over the water colliding with the tiles around her, and her thoughts strayed away from her unborn baby and to all the born babies who would have a miserable 4th of July. It occurred to her several minutes later, as she pumped a blob of strawberry scented shower soap into her palm, that their misery would have blackened the day even if the morning had dawned bright and clear.

It was Whitey's favorite holiday, and he was no longer alive to celebrate it. What fun would the fireworks be if he was not there to watch them, situated on his porch with a glass of lemonade in his hand and a grin on his weathered face? Would the hot dogs taste as sumptuous, would the hot apple pie even burn anyone's tongues, would the American flags even wave proudly in the breeze without Whitey there to enjoy the day?

Brooke smoothed the gel over her arms and shoulders and decided that they would, even if she had to move mountains and cross many rivers.

Her shower went fast, and as soon as she had stolen some of Rachel's clothes from the laundry room and snatched a piece of toast off the kitchen counter, Brooke was out the door without so much as a word to her friends. The plan she had cooked up in the shower had to be executed as soon as possible if she hoped to pull it off before nightfall, and she would have plenty of time to explain it to them later. For now, she had her eyes fixed on River Street and Karen's Café.

It occurred to her on the way there that Lucas would probably be there with his mother, and when she rounded the corner of Crescent Street and the corner café came into view, her fears were confirmed. He was sitting at the counter eating a hearty breakfast and laughing at something Haley was telling him, and even though Brooke had accepted that she was wrong to storm away from him, she had not even begun to contemplate forgiving him for what he had done concerning Peyton Sawyer.

So, when she pushed the door open and the bell inevitably tinkled, she made a beeline for Karen at the other side of the café and ignored Lucas's hopeful look entirely. He would get his chance to talk, but it would come_ much _later, after Brooke had done what she intended to do later that afternoon, and at a far more appropriate time than when they were collectively mourning the death of one of their most cherished mentors.

"Karen," she murmured after her boyfriend's mother finished clearing a table. "Can I talk to you?"

Karen turned around, a bin full of dishes on her hip and an unreadable look on her face. Brooke was suddenly struck with the realization that Lucas's mother would _obviously_ have heard all about her immature behavior the day before, and a small flush of embarrassment spread through her body as the older woman set the bin down on the floor and took a seat at the now clean booth.

"Of course, Brooke."

Relief overpowered the embarrassment and Brooke hesitantly took the seat across from Karen. Just because she was willing to sit down and have a conversation did not mean that Karen had not chosen her son's side in the impending argument, and Brooke found herself wishing she had gone to someone else for help.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Well," Brooke fiddled with the necklace she had been wearing since yesterday and avoided Karen's eye, "first of all, Lucas and I -- "

Karen stopped her by holding up a hand and shaking her head, "Brooke, I understand you and my son are having a bit of a...disagreement. He kept me up with it all night." Brooke glanced away from the salt and pepper shakers and refrained from biting her lip in apprehension. "But you two will have to work it out between yourselves, it's none of my business...and don't tell him, but I think you're absolutely right to be upset."

She had slipped that last sentence in so fast, Brooke was surprised she had caught it, but the mere fact that Karen was not angry with her brought a thankful smile to her face. "Of course, I wanted to talk to you about something polar oppositely different, anyway."

Karen set her arms on the table and leaned forward, "I'm all ears."

"Well, it's the 4th of July," despite the abysmal weather, the shops up and down River Street had still adorned their windows with American flags, and she had seen more than enough red-white-and-blue bunting and blow up Uncle Sam dolls on the way up Crescent Street, "and I was just thinking...well, obviously it was Whitey's favorite day of the year and everything."

The woman across from her nodded and let out a small sigh, "It's a shame he didn't get to celebrate one more time."

Those words brought the sting of tears to Brooke's newly mascara framed eyes and she started talking to keep herself from becoming red and splotchy again, "I just had a thought earlier that the town -- well, I could do something for him today. A memorial party, I guess? I mean, I guess it could probably be disrespectful to do that so soon, but -- "

But Karen was looking brighter at this suggestion, "Brooke, I think that's the best idea anyone could possibly have."

"Really?" Brooke's eyebrows shot up and she felt her heart swell. "You think? Would you help me?"

"With what?" Brooke could tell that Karen was already composing a mental checklist of all the food she could make between then and the party, but Brooke had other ideas.

"Principal Turner is still...well, principal at the high school, right?" Karen's nod affirmed Brooke's question. "Well, Whitey gave so much to this town, and the school especially, so I thought it would be kind of fitting to throw the party at the gym? I mean, it is named after him and everything, so I just thought..."

Karen nodded again, and Brooke finally breathed easy. Her elation quickly evaporated when a shadow fell over the table and she looked away from Karen to see Lucas standing in front of them. His hands were shoved into his pockets, a clear indication that he had approached them after being poked and prodded by Haley, and he was squinting just a little, which meant he had mulled over exactly what he was going to say and was hoping to get it out before he forgot.

She felt a hand on hers, and a look down at the table told her it belonged to Karen. Brooke nodded ever so slightly, and there were perhaps five seconds between Karen leaving and Lucas taking her seat on the other side of the table. There was a long, awkward moment between them during which Brooke made the mistake of looking up and getting lost in his baby blue eyes. They were so blue she wanted to die...but when he reached for her hand the way his mother had done the moment ended, and Brooke recoiled into the safer cushions of her seat.

The second silence lasted much longer than the first, and it was obvious to both of them that this conversation was not going to go smoothly.


End file.
